Monday, June 2, 2008

Even before the U.S. Embassy-supported right-wing Suharto dictatorship invaded East Timor during the 1970s and massacred many, many civilians in East Timor, many, many Indonesian civilians had previously been massacred during the 1960s by the U.S. Embassy-supported Suharto regime. According to the preface to the 1999 edition of East Timor: Genocide InParadise by Matthew Jardine, “in 1965, under General Suharto, the army—and civilian death squads affiliated with it—slaughtered more than a million alleged enemies of the state (including women and children) in just a few months.” Noam Chomsky also wrote in the introduction to this same book:

“…Suharto came to power in 1965 with a `boiling bloodbath,’…a `staggering mass slaughter of Communists and pro-Communists,’ mostly landless peasants…(New York Times)…

“…Not only did the…bloodbath destroy the only mass-based political party in Indonesia, but it opened the rich resources of the country to Western exploitation…”

According to the East Timor: Genocide In Paradise book:

“…Worried that the area might move beyond U.S. control, Washington began (in the 1950s) to curry favor with the Indonesian army, through military assistance and training programs.

“The US soon reaped the benefits of this policy. In 1965, using an alleged Communist plot to overthrow the government as an excuse, pro-U.S. General Suharto assumed control of the military and launched one of the great slaughters of our time. Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were killed, mostly landless peasants and members of the Communist Party of Indonesia (many of whose names had been supplied to the army by the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta)…

“Suharto’s government repealed the previous regime’s `extremely restrictive’ investment laws and paved the way for large-scale foreign investment. By the 1970s, the US was investing more in Indonesia than in any other Southeast Asian country…U.S. companies supplied about 90 percent of the weapons used during the invasion of East Timor.

“…The minimum wage is less than $2 a day…Extensive mining, logging and oil extraction takes place there, as well as manufacturing by and for a wide variety of US companies, including Nike, Levi Strauss, Toys R Us, General Motors, DuPont, Liz Claiborne and Tommy Hilfiger…”